She was subjected to torrents of virulent abuse, her things were torn
from her, her English china basins, possessions she valued most highly,
were smashed, her clothes were torn, and she was driven out as an
unclean thing. Had it not been for the fear of incurring Miss Slessor's
anger, she would, at this point have been killed with her children, and
the bodies thrown into the bush. As it was, she was hounded out of the
village. The rest of her possessions were jammed into an empty gin-case
and cast to her. No one would touch her, as they might not touch to
kill. Miss Slessor had heard of the twins' arrival and had started off,
barefooted and bareheaded, at that pace she can go down a bush path. By
the time she had gone four miles she met the procession, the woman
coming to her, and all the rest of the village yelling and howling
behind her. On the top of her head was the gin-case, into which the
children had been stuffed, on the top of them the woman's big brass
skillet, and on the top of that her two market calabashes. Needless to
say, on arriving Miss Slessor took charge of affairs, relieving the
unfortunate, weak, staggering woman from her load and carrying it
herself, for no one else would touch it, or anything belonging to those
awful twin things, and they started back together to Miss Slessor's
house in the forest-clearing, saved by that tact which, coupled with
her courage, has given Miss Slessor an influence and a power among the
negroes unmatched in its way by that of any other white.
She did not take the twins and their mother down the village path to
her own house, for though, had she done so, the people of Okoyong would
not have prevented her, yet so polluted would the path have been and so
dangerous to pass down, that they would have been compelled to cut
another, no light task in that bit of forest, I assure you. So Miss
Slessor stood waiting in the broiling sun, in the hot season's height,
while a path was being cut to enable her just to get through to her own
grounds. The natives worked away hard, knowing that it saved the
polluting of a long stretch of market road, and when it was finished
Miss Slessor went to her own house by it, and attended with all
kindness, promptness, and skill to the woman and children. I arrived in
the middle of this affair for my first meeting with Miss Slessor, and
things at Okoyong were rather crowded, one way and another, that
afternoon. All the attention one of the children wanted--the boy, for
there were a boy and a girl--was burying, for the people who had
crammed them into the box had utterly smashed the child's head. The
other child was alive, and is still a member of that household of
rescued children, all of whom owe their lives to Miss Slessor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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